


sleep

by halcyonskies



Series: 100Themes: Dean/Cas [89]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Child Death, Gen, Guardian Angels, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5277797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyonskies/pseuds/halcyonskies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's awesome, mostly. He misses his family, but it's nice not to feel so tired anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sleep

**Author's Note:**

> 100Themes Challenge - #28: Heaven
> 
> :(

Mom couldn’t hide how much she cried, and even Dad had that red-rimmed look about him most days when they came to visit Dean. Sammy was practically the same snot-nosed brat he’d ever been, only maybe a bit less excitable. More serious. He was only five, after all – he didn’t really have any idea what was going on.

Then again, Dean didn’t either, and he was a whole four years older.

He just guessed that there must have been something horribly wrong with him. Why else would every adult he saw in these endless days of white walls and doctors look so _sad_ all the time? Even Uncle Bobby got choked up half the time he visited, and Uncle Bobby was the toughest, grisliest guy Dean knew – even more so than _Dad._

He wasn’t stupid. He knew how sick he was, no matter what Mom and Dad and everyone else said when they came. They always said he had to work really hard to get better, but it wasn’t like Dean could do any more than he already was – which wasn’t much in the first place. He was too tired to make it out of bed most days. Every bit of him ached, even though he didn’t _do_ anything all day long. Everything felt like climbing a mountain these days, not that Dean had ever done _that_ either.

He probably wasn’t ever going to be able to do something like that.

Dean couldn’t say if he felt scared. Maybe he was, late at night when they dimmed the lights in his room and he was all alone, the humming of hospital equipment all he had for company. All he could think of in those moments was how alone he was, how confused and angry – why was this happening? Why did _he_ have to be sick? He knew it wasn’t nice to think stuff like that, but it was hard not to.

But everything usually looked better in the morning, like Mom always said. When his family was around – as lousy as they were at hiding their puffy eyes and shaky smiles – Dean didn’t think about being sick at all. He didn’t think about what it meant, how long he’d been in the hospital. Fear was for the nighttime.

Something happened, one night.

Dean wasn’t awake for much of it. He felt a little bit like he was floating, everything growing dimmer and dimmer, this feeling like someone pushing on his chest – and then it was like he woke up. So many people were standing or sitting around his bedside, all of them looking a different flavor of sad. Mom was holding his hand so tight Dean thought she might be breaking his bones, and the tears were flowing freely down her face.

They couldn’t hide what was going on, after that. He was dying. _Would_ die, probably within the next few days. Dean wanted to tell them he didn’t care if that was the truth, that they didn’t have to feel so bad about having to say it. Even at nine years old, Dean liked it better when he was told the truth. And anyway, it didn’t change things, not really. He still wasn’t really afraid, or sad about it. He didn’t really understand death, at least not the way everyone else apparently did. All he knew was that, after a while, he wouldn’t be here anymore. He’d be somewhere else.

Mom started talking about Heaven. Dean knew about Heaven already, but he liked the way Mom talked about it, and he liked that she seemed a little less sad when she was describing infinite sunny days and good food and afternoons spent trawling a lake that would never run out of fish. She probably only added that part because she knew how much Dean liked camping in the summer, just him and Dad and Uncle Bobby and Aunt Ellen.  

Dad didn’t talk about Heaven. But he still told Dean he loved him, still held his hand tight and kissed his forehead every night before they left, something he hadn’t really done since Dean was Sammy’s age. That sort of made Dean sadder than anything else.

One night, he went to sleep.

His body never woke up.

But _Dean_ did, and if dying was hard to understand, then standing above his own body as a bunch of doctors and nurses fluttered anxiously around him, _through_ him, was just about impossible. No one saw him, no one responded when he talked.

“Time of death,” he heard, and then Dean understood.

That was about the time that he _really_ started feeling afraid. Not about dying necessarily – it hadn’t hurt, and he was still _here,_ technically – but what was he supposed to do now? He was just a kid; he didn’t know how to be by himself. If nobody could see him, or talk to him, how was he supposed to figure any of this out? He’d always thought you just went right up to Heaven when you died, but he was still here.  

His family bowled in a little while later, and the looks on their faces frightened Dean worse than anything else so far. So he left.

A boy stood outside the hospital room.

He looked right at Dean.

“Dean Winchester,” the boy said. He was just Dean’s age, skinny and pale and with hair like a bird’s nest sticking up off his forehead.

“You can see me?” Dean asked hopefully. When he came closer, blue eyes tracked him. Something about them told Dean that the boy might not be something from _here,_ but surprisingly, Dean didn’t feel frightened by the possibility. The boy felt safe.

“Of course,” the boy said. He was playing with the edge of his shirt, like he was _nervous._ “Are you finished saying goodbye to your family?”

Dean shrugged. “We’ve been saying goodbye for ages. They can’t hear me now anyway.”

“Well, then it’s time to go.” The boy held out a hand, but Dean took a step back, suspicious.

“Who _are_ you? Why can _you_ see me?”

The boy blinked, thrown by Dean’s refusal. “I’m Castiel. I’m an angel of the Lord. I’m here to take you to your Heaven.”

“You don’t have wings,” Dean pointed out.

Castiel sighed, twisting his hands nervously in front of him. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t _hurt_ you if I showed them. You’re not technically corporeal anymore. You don’t have physical eyes to burn out.”

Before Dean could make sense of any of that, the boy – the _angel_ – rolled his shoulders, and then _wings_ appeared. Huge and feathery, just like those paintings, glossy and thick and brown like dark chocolate. Castiel’s eyes glowed faintly, hot-white like a lightbulb, and the lights overhead flickered.

“I’m an angel, Dean,” Castiel repeated. He held out a hand again. “Come, little one. It’s time to go home.”

So Dean took the angel’s hand, and they left the hospital behind.


End file.
